


The Lucky Goose and the Unlucky Duck

by LazyLuc



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, donald is a ghost, ghost au, the big tag is just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24912949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyLuc/pseuds/LazyLuc
Summary: This AU belongs to bamboozledeagle.Donald never get along with his cousin Gladstone very well, but that didn't mean he didn't care about him at all. So when a secret is discovered, the least he can do for his lucky cousin is to give him an explanation.But how are you supposed to explain to your cousin that you're dead?
Relationships: Donald Duck & Gladstone Gander
Comments: 4
Kudos: 82





	The Lucky Goose and the Unlucky Duck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bamboozledeagle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamboozledeagle/gifts).



> You should go read about the AU if you want to understand what's happening (it's on tumblr at @bamboozledeagle and named Ghost AU). But for context, Donald died on a adventure long ago but stayed as a ghost and kept it secret. This fic happens after Gladstone accidentally discovered it after trowing towards him a gift who passed through him and Donald told him the truth, then he run off with Scrooge after him (who knew). Enjoy!

Gladstone ran at full speed out of Donald's houseboat, and Scrooge went after him. Donald stood there, alone, wondering what he could or at least should do.

He really regretted that his cousin had to learn it this way, he could have done it more smoothly, even if he had to admit that he would have preferred not to reveal his secret at all. He just hoped that the day Fethry would found out, he’d learn it in a softer way.

His gaze fell on the gift that his lucky cousin had just given him. With a sigh, Donald concentrated all of his will and energy and decided that the least he could do for Gladstone after this catastrophic scene and revelation was worth an explanation. While staying in his ‘ghost mode’ to avoid wasting the little energy he had left. He thought of Gladstone.

Donald found himself floating in a room whose only light was coming from a window opposite of the sun who was currently setting, making the room a little dark. He was in a room no more used of the Scrooge’s manor, if he could guess by the lack of furniture and the very neutral state of the room. His cousin had obviously managed to run away from their uncle, and perhaps it was his luck that had allowed him that and that had brought him here.

In front of him was Gladstone sitting on the ground, his hands closed tightly around his knees and his head folded back on himself. He seemed to tremble and weak sobs seemed to escape from him.

Donald felt really bad for knowing that HE was the cause of his terrible condition, he almost never saw his cousin in such a state or even similar to that. He always had his smug smile on his face and his blind confidence in his innate luck and his so lazy behavior. But Donald knew that even when things didn’t go his way (meaning that his luck worked perfectly for HIM every time, but never reach the people around him, even worse it could affect them only for the worse if people positioned themself against him), the goose preferred to pretend not to care at all about anything and claim that he was not affected by it. As Della's incident could prove, Gladstone always preferred to isolate himself from the rest of the world in those moments, preferring not to show his weaknesses. And it seemed that ‘now’ was considered like one of those moments.

So Donald really wasn’t used to seeing Gladstone like that, at all, he may never have stand his lucky cousin, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t care about him at all. He felt kinda guilty.

Sighing for a second time, Donald concentrated all of his energy to materialize himself, his energy was being recovered at the moment after all. And his feet hit the ground in front of the lucky goose who didn't seem to notice his presence, or if he did, he ignored him.

He sat against the wall next to Gladstone, keeping some space between them knowing the rather awkward situation they were in.

"Hey, Gladstone?"

"..."

"I would have preferred that you to learned it differently." The duck decided to be honest.

A dry laugh came from the Gladstone, keeping his head between his knees and refusing to look at him.

After a silence that seemed to last forever, the lucky goose decided to speak again. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Still not looking at him.

"Well, to be fair, I never told anyone ... Well, besides the kids and Panchito and José... Scrooge was an accident." He finished.

"Heh!" Another dry laugh came without any humor. "Of course you told them." Judging from his tone, Donald could guess that he was talking about his parrot and his rooster friend. He was his cousin after all and must have felt rejected or put in the background. Not even important enough to deserve to know such crucial information that his own cousin is dead.

Another silence settled. Distractedly, he wondered if Uncle Scrooge was still looking for Glad.

"Since when?..." Finally asked the goose, he wasn’t trembling anymore trying to hold back his sobs, but his voice seemed really tired and his limbs were loose in a defeated way.

Donald made the quick calculation in his head, "Nineteen years."

Gladstone’s head snapped towards him very quickly, creating the first eye contact since their conversation started. His gaze was a mix of confusion and disbelief. And his gaze scrutinized him as if he could find all his answers just by looking at him hard enough. Donald could see traces of tears on his cheeks and around his eyes.

"NINETEEN? !! It’s been nine- How OLD were you when you -..." He cut himself off. "You were thirteen..." the last part left in a whisper, Donald gave a sad smile in responce.

"H-How?" Gladstone was looking at him now, with something new in his eyes that Donald couldn't identify. "Well, I was on an adventure with Uncle Scrooge and Della, and I guess I went where I was not supposed to go... And I may have touched some cursed artifact that I wasn’t supposed to touch... " he trailed off.

Gladstone gave him an incredulous look, "YOU DID WHAT ?! "

"Hey! Your luck protects you! Mine tries to kill me, it was almost seen in advance that an incident like this would happen someday!" he was starting to get irritated, but he didn't wanted to say anything that he would regret.

Gladstone replied, "Luck has nothing to do with that cuz! We are talking about common sense! "

"Oh, shut up!"

Having an argument was almost warmly welcomed as familiar to them. And it was much more natural than being in a situation where your cousin explained to you that he had been dead for almost twenty years and that he had hidden that he was a ghost all this time.

Yeah.

It was kind of awkward...

"So, why did my gift pass through you earlier?" I’ve already seen you caught things before." He asked in a voice that was quieter than how he felt in the inside.

"Huh? Oh, it's just that when I run out of energy after worning it out during the day, I can become invisible and lose sense of touch and can’t be heard anymore for a short time if I use it too much of it. I guess my bad luck play in the bad timing that you arrived when I was getting back into shape, heh." He explained, he didn't want to go into details knowing that it was already a lot to take for Gladstone, his uncle is used to weird stuff and meeting ghosts (Duckworth included), but Gladstone was much less.

"... You should have told me, you should have told us." Gladstone broke eye contact, choosing to put his head back on his knees and looking at the wall in front of him.

"Maybe, but between us I really didn't want to be exorcised by Uncle Scrooge." He laughed humorlessly. Gladstone frowned at that and looked at him sideways at the nonsense of the thing, as if he had just heard the most absurd thing he never heard of his entire life.

"Hey, don't look at me like that! You don't know what he does to ghosts, I know it, I saw him doing it!" The duck defended himself.

The lucky goose sighed and threw his head back resting on the wall, "I guess I can't do anything about it now..." he said softly, more to himself than to his unlucky cousin.

"And to think that Della was supposed to be the reckless one and you the carefull one, seriously what were you doing?" It was more of a statement than a real question and it got on Donald’s nerves. The goose looked a little more like himself at this time.

"What do you mean ‘what was I doing’?!" He exclaimed a little irritated, but kind of familiarly.

"It means what it means cuz. Come on, we're not going to let Uncle Scrooge looking for us all day, or rather, all night now." He said ignoring Donald's previous question, standing up and tending a hand for Donald to reach.

The duck was halfway accepting the hand of the goose when he wondered if he was physically able to do it, had he recovered enough energy yet? Gladstone seemed to notice his inner debate as he took his hand back, walked his hands in his pockets to the door and opened it, "Shall we? "

Donald gave him a little grateful smile before going to the door. A hand reached him on the shoulder. Oh, so he was physical.

"Just one more thing," Gladstone looked rather shy and seemed to be looking for words, "If you need anything or even just support, you can call me, you don't need to hide anything from me, okay?" His lucky cousin had a serious but imploring look at the same time, it was maybe the first time that Donald had seen him with such an expression of his whole life of knowing each other. "Please." He added at the end, clearly, he didn't want similar events to happen again, he was also very worried about the fate of his unlucky cousin of his.

Donald gave him a sorry smile, but also a sincere one when he said, "I won’t forget, thank you Glad." Finding all the latest events a little too dense and heavy, he added to cheer up the mood, "Next time I die you’ll be the first to know."

This earned him a chuckle and a friendly punch on his arm, as the two cousins walked down the hall reaching for Scrooge. They had a long way to go but at least they weren't alone on it, and knew that they could count on each other.


End file.
